The bottom-up war on Thanksgiving (libtard foot soldiers, not top-down war by academia / media)

Why do libtards go out of their way to ruin Thanksgiving? Second time within just 5 years.

Part of their greater moralistic crusade to destroy family bonds, destroy American traditions, and destroy holidays as a whole -- as something sacrosanct, protected from everyday bullshit.

I don't mean ideological crap that they post online about how the Pilgrims were problematic or whatever, I mean in their IRL face-to-face interactions with their own flesh and blood on a supposedly holy holiday here.

The former is top-down by the elites in academia, media, and entertainment. I'm talking about the bottom-up process by -- usually not elites, but aspiring elites, strivers, etc. And they may well be outside of academia / media / entertainment, but they take their marching orders from those sectors' elites, as foot soldiers in the crusade.

Well, they may end up destroying family bonds, but not in the way they think -- they're just going to get written off, excluded, and ostracized by those who do value family sanctity over petty moralistic bullshit.

Because contrary to their wish-casting, normal people don't actually have to tolerate them, host them, or even interact with them on these holidays anymore. No amount of pressure from Harvard, MSNBC, or Disney is going to enforce the foot soldiers being hosted by their families, at the grassroots level all over America. They only control what happens in their top-down world (what makes the news, what's taken as true history, etc.). Instead, the foot soldiers are weeding themselves out of the kin-pool.

Technically, it's zealots who fall under this description, since the non-zealous Democrats aren't weeding themselves out, and there are a handful of psycho Republicans who antagonize their families to the breaking point / ostracization. But right here, right now, zealots are way more libtard than conservatard, at least 80-20. Republicans, conservatives, Trump supporters, etc., are more jaded and cynical about politics, whereas Democrats, liberals, and Trump haters are driven by idealistic fervor.

Finally, in typical fashion, the ones trying to destroy the family bonds are always those who have received the most from the family and given the least, and go out of their way to signal their ingratitude. Normally this is tolerated because they're parasites who happen to share a high percentage of their genes with you -- but it's gotten so bad, that I don't see these types being tolerated any longer. Not in my case, that's for sure. They're not going to suck anything more out, while giving nothing back -- and waging war on the family at the same time!

My advice to those with a libtard crusader in your family (and there only needs to be one to ruin it for the whole group), get your anger out in the short-term, and then just write them off indefinitely. Tell them you aren't going to talk to them, host them, or give them anything (money, gifts, services / favors, literally anything).

I was hoping this would've died down after the psycho fever pitch of the late 2010s and 2020, but the fact that it's still going on in 2022 means these ones are probably not correctable by mundane means. Pray for them if you want, but you aren't going to change them -- they underwent a radicalization during the second half of the 2010s and 2020, and their transformation cannot be reversed.

If it was just an edgy middle-schooler posting a raised fist in the summer of 2020, I'd ignore that and wait and see what happens throughout this decade. But if they're a Millennial who imprinted on the war for wokeness, not as a youthful rebellion that may fade away, but as though it were a mature responsibility of theirs -- like a fiery 30-something preacher -- I don't see that wearing off. They weren't young, impulsive, and impressionistic -- they were in their late 20s and 30s!

To close on something more upbeat, please consider yourself lucky, and appreciate your situation, if you belong to the fortunate families that are primarily Silents, Gen X-ers, and Zoomers -- rather than Boomers and Millennials (and post-Zoomers, who are too young to be anything yet). You really don't know how good you have it, even if you were also subjected to the divorce epidemic or other family-destroying trends.

That was not unique to Silents and X-er children, but Boomers and X-er / Millennial children, too. But on top of that dysfunctional family force, the Boomer / Millennial families have a far higher concentration of zealots corroding the family for moral crusader reasons.

Sadly (to not close on something so upbeat after all), this is another huge blow to IRL and another huge boost to online / virtual interactions. You can micro-curate your social network online, excluding these persistent toxic influences that plague IRL spheres like the family. But it is what it is, you can only adapt -- by excluding the toxic ones from IRL family occasions, and depending more on normal people online (yes, they're out there, even if they put on an edgy persona).

Are Millennials / Zoomers nostalgic for GameStop, as Gen X is for Blockbuster?

I'm going to re-post a lengthy comment of mine into a standalone post, since it is a bit far from the original topic, though still of general interest. See the comments beginning here for the background -- talking about the availability, or not, of classic video games in the online-only era, when physical media no longer exists, more or less.

Part of my broader interest in contemporary archaeology, like collections of beer and soda containers left behind in hang-out spaces in the woods around suburbia, back when young people used to go there for fun (mainly in the '70s and '80s). Or carvings in sidewalk cement, or carvings on trees, and the like. Physical, tangible traces and remains of an earlier "vibe" or zeitgeist -- not just intangible memories and stories.

Corporeal (as opposed to cerebral) people of any generation could be interested in this stuff, so here it goes.

* * *

Are Millennials and Zoomers nostalgic for GameStop now? I would be. I know there was the meme stock thing, but I mean actual nostalgia for the store, the way they get misty-eyed about GameFAQs walkthroughs.

I stopped playing most new video games after the '90s, but still hit up GameStop in the 2000s to get those compilations of old games for the PS2 or GameCube -- the only reason I bought those consoles. (Used and cheap, both the games and consoles.)

Only contempo games I bought (used, cheap) were for the GBA and DS, which was still keeping 2D alive over 3D, and the drawing / illustration style alive over the photographic / cinematographic style.

I picked up the Game Boy Player adapter for the GameCube, allowing the GBA cartridges to play on a TV (without emulation of the GBA or the games -- same tech used for the GBP as the GBA). In the bargain bin for probably $5, with the disc, case, manual, everything. Now goes for well over $100, and sadly something I had to sell during a major move.

And just milling around the store, browsing, being around other people, maybe chit-chatting with the workers.

Similar to how Gen X will always wax nostalgic for the heyday of the video rental store. And like that staple of the community, the video game store had its small chains or mom & pop stores, like Play N Trade, not only the mega-corpo of GameStop.

It was obligatory to hate on GameStop if you were a gamer in the 2000s, and I imagine into the 2010s. Now looking back on it, have gamers changed their minds? Its business model sucked, they ripped you off if you sold them anything, they always tried to push pre-orders, bla bla bla -- but still, it was a staple of the community, a cultural hang-out space for like-minded people, nothing online or digital about it, but physical and tangible and *social*.

Once upon a time, it was also obligatory to hate on GameStop and others for slapping those price stickers on the games and consoles, requiring meticulous removal. Nowadays, do Millennials and Zoomers get nostalgic for those physical traces of a bygone social-cultural era?

Like having VHS tapes that were originally from a public library, or a Blockbuster, or mom & pop video store. I have several like that, and the different types of cases, or the labels indicating who used to own it, do give them an extra level of nostalgia.

If Gen X-ers can get nostalgic for Blockbuster Video, Millennials and Zoomers can sure as hell get nostalgic for GameStop.